The commitment to research that exists within Economics has been underlined by the results of the recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 exercise, with the Department ranked 6th out of 28 institutions on research intensity.

How democratic is arms-length government? Catherine Durose, Jonathan B. Justice and Chris Skelcher argue that those who consider it to be an undemocratic phenomenon over-simplify, and make the case for assessing the question in a more citizen and community focussed manner.